Comcast Trials BSOD For Politicians

from the worth-a-shot dept

With campaign season in full swing, there's no shortage of 30-second attack ads that offer very little substantive information about the candidates. Obviously, politicians must feel they work, or they wouldn't keep spending money on them, but as voters have other media options besides the TV and are prone to skip political ads, it's inevitable that the effect of traditional political advertising is wearing off. Comcast is now offering campaigns the opportunity to buy long-form advertisements over its VOD service, ranging in length from 2 to 30 minutes. Of course, these spots won't be viewed by as many people, but a voter who actively seeks out a political commercial is probably the type of voter that candidates want to reach. And remember the popularity of Ross Perot's hour-long infomercials in which he explained the national debt? People will pay attention to political ads that are heavy on information. If politicians just put regular ads on the VOD service, there is little to no chance that anyone will want to watch them, but if they put up content that's informative and interesting -- as other advertisers are learning to do -- people may actually pay attention.

I have to admit...

if I came across political ads that actually cover the issues instead of the usual, "Candidate A is teh sux." nonsense. I would really watch an ad that may be longwinded but the candidate presents and explains an issue and gives recommendations on a solution. Silly me I didn't start paying any mind to politics until the 2004 election (I've only been able to vote since 2000) but now I'm ready for the forums, discuassions, and debates. But until the mud slinging stops I have no time for the 30sec. ads.

Re:

What are you talking about?

Comment 2. What on earth are you talking about? I'd enjoy watching it if, like you said, they're not constantly bashing each other's campaigns or saying things like "Politician A raised taxes to pay of his gambling and weedage bill. Do you really know Politician A. Politician B will raise taxes to pay of your gambling and weedage bill. Vote for Politician B." If it was iformative I think it'd be a great idea + a money maker for comcast so maybe they'd upgrade their internet services.

While I agree with the raw information of this post, I disagree with the conclusion. Today, the purpose of political ads has changed. They are no longer trying to get someone to vote for Candidate A, they are trying to get Candidate A's supporters to vote. The people who would seek out and play the VOD ads are already pretty diehard and likely to vote.

Here's a project for the class: Just as TV ushered this sort of thing in, how can modern technology be used to reduce the amount sound bites, buzz words and slogans used by politicians, and increase their incentive to actually try to impart information to the voters? The "world as they see it" at the very least?

There's a candidate here in Mass, and all he uses is platitudes and Corp speak, he says nothing of a conrete nature at all. It's driving me nuts.

We had a political campaign here around the issue of whether to recycle water. Unfortunately for the pro-recycling parties they opted to choose scare tactics rather than list facts about why the scheme was better and cheaper than the alternatives that the opposition was touting.

Basically it backfired on them.

They originally had support to go ahead with the scheme with a majority support in the council. After the referendum they had lost major support from everywhere, so now we face drought conditions and dam levels of under 20%.

Facts would have made the difference IMHO. The vote went to a 40/60 split. I think some REAL information would have actually educated some of the stiffs in this place into voting for their future, not for the misinformation.